[Sidenote: _The Glasgow Postmaster's "Mistake"_] In 1876, before the Select Committee on Post Office, Mr. Hobson, Postmaster at Glasgow, stated that he could not promote his telegraph operators according to their dexterity, he was obliged to promote according to seniority. Mr. Gower, a member of the Select Committee queried: "Therefore, there is no encouragement whatever to superior dexterity?" Mr. Hobson replied: "I should not recommend a clerk for promotion ... if I were satisfied that he was not doing all he could to improve himself ... and was only an indifferent operator. I should mention that in submitting the report, and recommend him to be passed over." Mr. Gower continued: "But suppose he took every sort of pains to improve himself, but did not improve?" The answer came: "I would then recommend him to go forward [_i. e._ for promotion]." Mr. Gower then asked: "Have you any power to exchange a clerk who is a slow operator for another quicker operator in a district where it would not signify?" The Postmaster at Glasgow replied: "None whatever."[274] The reader will recall that there are numerous telegraph stations in Glasgow. In April, 1877, the Postmaster General, Lord John Manners, replied to the Report of the Select Committee of 1876, in a letter to the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury. He concluded the letter with the statement: "In conclusion, I beg leave to say that it is, I think, hardly worth while to attempt to contradict the mistakes as to promotion into which the postmaster of Glasgow was accidentally betrayed in giving his evidence before the Committee of last Session, and to which no reference is made in their Report."[275] Before the same Committee, Mr. Edward Graves, Divisional Engineer, recommended that the head of the Post Office establish the rule, "that, other things being equal as to seniority and general business capacity, preference for promotion shall always be given to the telegraph clerk who has shown himself possessed of technical knowledge, and who is desirous of obtaining technical information."[276] Passing over a period of 28 years, that is, from the year 1876 to the year 1904, we find Mr. E. Trenam, Controller London Central Telegraph Office, testifying that because of danger that in the immediate future there would be a lack of telegraph clerks who had a knowledge of the technics of telegraphy, Mr. W. H. Preece, Engineer-in-Chief, had caused a special increase in pay--$26 a year--to be offered to men who should acquire such knowledge. The witness added that "unfortunately many of the men who have [acquired] this knowledge are comparative juniors, and we are compelled to put them to work which those receiving higher pay are incompetent to perform. It will take some years to adjust the anomaly ... [that is, before the incompetent men receiving higher pay shall have been pensioned or shall have died]".[277] [Sidenote: _Promotion by Seniority, not Jobbery, the Public Service's weak Point_]